Senior Data Engineer, US - Contract

We are seeking a skilled and experienced Senior Data Engineer to join our innovative team. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise in modern data engineering technologies, strong collaboration skills, and a solid understanding of the financial services sector. Beyond building scalable pipelines, this role will play a critical part in supporting Data Science initiatives—especially around feature engineering and preparing high-quality datasets for advanced analytics and machine learning. If you thrive in a collaborative, agile environment and excel at enabling research through robust data platforms, we’d love to hear from you. Responsibilities Design, build, and maintain scalable data platforms and pipelines using technologies like Python, Airflow, Snowflake, and AWS (S3, Glue, Athena, EMR, SageMaker), ensuring performant, reliable, and high-quality delivery. Partner closely with Data Scientists to transform raw data into curated, model-ready features, and establish practices such as feature stores to support consistency, reuse, and experimentation. Apply data quality, lineage, and governance practices to ensure datasets and features are trusted, reproducible, and well-documented. Collaborate with stakeholders across business, research, and technology teams to align on requirements, priorities, and outcomes. Produce clear technical documentation, including artifacts for testing, training, and delivery. Requirements 8+ years of experience delivering data-centric platforms with large datasets, fast SLAs, and high data quality standards. Advanced proficiency in Python, including data processing libraries (e.g., Pandas, PySpark). Strong hands-on experience with AWS data stack (S3, Glue, Athena, EMR, SageMaker) as well as orchestration and warehousing tools like Airflow and Snowflake. Proven track record building pipelines that support Data Science workflows, including feature engineering and model-ready datasets. Solid end-to-end development process experience, including CI/CD, automated deployments, code reviews, and delivering high-quality, production-ready code. Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to debug complex issues and optimize performance. Excellent interpersonal and organizational skills, with the ability to work collaboratively across Data Science, Engineering, and Business teams. Why Lab49? Lab49 is an established partner for most financial institutions on Wall Street. You will gain exposure into a variety of environments, business domains, technologies, and people. Your ability to bring drive and creativity to the role will be the key component to success at Lab49. The broad and intense exposure to a variety of challenges accelerates your career growth, and Lab49’s structure is designed to enable you to learn and grow as an engineer and consultant. Lab49/ION is committed to maintaining a supportive and inclusive environment for people with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We respect the varied identities, abilities, cultures, and traditions of the individuals who comprise our organization and recognize the value that different backgrounds and points of view bring to our business. Lab49/ION adheres to an equal employment opportunity policy that prohibits discriminatory practices or harassment against applicants or employees based on any legally impermissible factor.